Prestack Data Enhancement with Phase Substitution and Phase Corrections Guided by Local Multidimensional Stacking

Summary We revisit enhancement with local stacking in the context of seismic data corrupted by near surface scattering. We discover that phase spectra derived from local stacking contains critical information that could be used as direct estimate of signal phase (phase substitution method) or as a guide (phase corrections method) to correct frequency-dependent distortions obstructing prestack data. Combining corrected phase with original amplitude spectrum, we arrive at much better estimate of enhanced data compared to conventional multi-dimensional local stacking. Specifically, we eliminate loss of higher frequencies and preserve original amplitudes, while making originally invisible reflections to become discernable and coherent for further processing. While we only present example of two possible methods, this discovery paves the way to plethora of new approaches finally enabling removing corrupting effects of complex scattering near surface beyond conventional surface-consistent processing.